Okay, so let's think about the conflict that erupts out of nowhere, the first point to make is that no conflict ever erupts out of nowhere, it may feel like that, and that feeling is real, but it's most likely that for the person erupting, the reasons for eruption are crystal clear and have a history. Remember the point that conflicts are nested phenomena? They are never isolated incidents, they are always embedded somehow, and this is true whether you know the person erupting or not, for example you walk in the door at the end of the day and say to your partner hey I had an idea for Sara's gift. Your partner shouts are you kidding me you are unbelievable and storms off. For you that reaction seems out of nowhere, for your partner, who shared an idea, earlier, to which you nodded while looking at your phone. Your partner who then spent hours pursuing that idea during an all ready busy day. Your partner who feels like the burden of gift getting always rests with them, for your partner the reaction was a long time coming, now this is true in eruptions among strangers also. All I did was ask that lady where to put my tray and she go all mad, that lady got mad not just because you as an individual mistook her for a worker in the restaurant, that mistake is embedded in complex dynamics between people of different genders classes and racial ethnic identities. In social interactions among strangers, actions are never neutral, we always interpret the actions of people especially if we don't know them through a host of assumptions. What is one person's innocent mistake is another person's daily experience of discrimination. So that's point number one, conflicts never erupt out of nowhere, there is always a history behind them. Now, just because conflicts always have a history does not mean they are never surprising. We are truly caught off guard by conflictual experiences all the time, so what do we do when we're surprised by a volatile reaction? Before I offer some suggestions, I want to be very clear about the scenario that I envision here. I am talking about moments when a person reacts to you or the situation with strong emotions, I'm not talking here about how you should respond to someone who is threatening violence, that is another level of interaction that requires a different kind of response, I'm talking about moments that are emotionally charged, but not physically violent. In these moments, when emotions are running high, I suggest that you do some things that for most of us are really counterintuitive. The first, is to avoid the impulse to fight or flee, now, you will know by now from our conflict assessment work, whether it's your tendency to fight back or to hide when confronted with conflict, in these emotionally charged moments that are surprising, I suggest you first avoid either of those tendencies. The second suggestion is to Pause, even if we avoid fighting or fleeing, the situation seems to require an urgent response, but before jumping in with the response, I suggest we take a pause and tell the upset person that this is what you're doing, don't just stand there they won't understand what's happening. But you can say, okay, I see that what I just did makes you angry, I just need a minute to figure out what's going on. A third suggestion is to acknowledge their feelings and then ask a question. When people's emotions are running high, one of the most helpful things to do is to acknowledge their emotions and then ask a question. Now this is a lesson we learned from mediations, that people need to not only feel empowered which we talked about but they also need to feel recognized, we all need to feel seen. Recognizing the feeling and asking a question demonstrate that you really do see the upset person in front of you, but the way you speak needs to be thoughtful an appropriate, well obviously you're sensitive to that is not helpful nor is the question what's up with you for example, but how about something like this? Wow, I'm really caught off guard by your reaction, and I want to understand what's going on, can you help me understand why my comment angered you? Now, I know as well as you do that it can be very irritating to have someone ask you for an explanation when they just did something that is so obviously infuriating, so there is no reason to expect that acknowledging feelings and asking a question even the best, most perfectly formulated question will suddenly turn the interaction rosy. But it can open up a space for that woeful moment to prompt a constructive change, at the very least, this move to recognize and constructively engage the other person, opens up a possibility that flight or fight do not.
